Wood Jaw

Wedged between books, a sliver of forgotten time,

this old clothespin.

Wood, weathered gray, a splintered crime

on one end, where it had been

used, hard.

The wire spring, rusty, but still tight,

a small, metallic bite.

It held things up, against the weather,

shirts, sheets, all gathered together.

I turn it over, the faint grain

of the wood, holding some old rain,

some old sun. How many hands

have pressed this jaw, across lost lands

of laundry lines?

It feels like a small, tired hand,

a grip that held, understood.

Now it just sits, in a dusty stand,

a piece of useful, forgotten wood.

The dust motes swim in the light.